Key Hezbollah financier pleads guilty in US

Lebanese businessman Kassim Tajideen, designated by U.S. authorities as an important financial supporter of Hezbollah, pleaded guilty Thursday to charges related to evading sanctions against him, a Justice Department statement said.

Tajideen, 63, pleaded guilty before a Washington court and faces five years in prison and a forfeiture of $50 million if his deal with prosecutors is accepted.

He was named a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in May 2009 by the Treasury Department over his links to Hezbollah.

Tajideen has been detained since extradition to the United States in March 2017 after his arrest overseas, the statement added.

"We are going to keep targeting Hezbollah and other terrorist groups and their supporters, and we are going to keep winning," said Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, who hailed the guilty plea.

Hezbollah has been a U.S. designated terrorist group since 1997 and fights alongside the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the country's civil war.